Liz Truss Threatens Rishi Sunak's Majority and Urges Conservatives to 'Stop Taxing and Banning Things'

Around 60 Conservative MPs have joined Liz Truss's pro-growth group and are rebelling against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's reluctance to cut taxes.

On Monday 1 October, Truss attended a conference in Manchester. At the conference, the former Tory leader called to "make Britain grow again" by pushing for tax cuts to happen this year.

While calling on her fellow Conservative voters at her "Great British Growth Rally", Truss urged them to "unleash their inner conservative" and to "stop taxing and banning things".

Truss, who served as the Prime Minister of the UK for just 49 days, was previously backed by around 30 Tory members, but her close acquaintance and Member of Parliament Janil Jayawardena said that the number has since grown to include 60 MPs.

Truss's increased popularity in parliament has inherently put Sunak's overall majority in parliament at risk.

Amongst those who are rallying behind Truss, is the former Home Secretary Priti Patel and MP Jacob Rees-Mogg who told the delegates: "We cannot be timid any more, we cannot be risk averse and we cannot accept the status quo."

On 5 September, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, announced that he would be presenting his Autumn Statement 2023 to parliament in November.

Speaking of those who have vowed to vote against Hunt's Autumn Statement 2023if tax bills increase, former Tory Chairman Jake Berry, who signed the document, said: "I think it's pretty unlikely that the chief whip will kick people out of the Conservative party if they stand by their pledge."

To prevent other Tory MPs from voting against the potential increase in tax, Berry added: "There's 33 who've signed already with more to come, and that's more than half of the government's majority."

However, a poll that was carried out by Opinium and saw 901 Conservative voters interviewed found that a staggering 34 per cent of people will be ditching the Tory party and will be voting for other parties in the next general election instead.

12 per cent of people said that they would switch to support Labour, 13 per cent intend to vote for the pro-Brexit Reform party, five per cent are moving to the Liberal Democrats and just three per cent will be joining the Green party.

Another ally backing Truss as the head of the Tory campaign, is the former UKIP Leader, Nigel Farage.

At the 'growth' rally, Farage recalled a "pretty rebellious mood" amongst the Tory MPs who displayed an obvious and "real desire to reset the party".

Speaking his mind, Farage also recognised: "There is a battle going on here, isn't there? What is really happening this week is the debate about who and what takes over the party after [they] lose the next election."

After being questioned on his alleged new loyalties to the Conservative party, Farage responded with: "I have no loyalty to any party, never have had. I led Ukip for all those years not because I loved UKIP, it was a vehicle, it was effective and got things changed."

Admiring Truss's bounce back into the limelight, the former UKIP Leader added: "It's policy that interest me. I think this woman has shown – in some areas – she is prepared to show up, take the abuse and fight for radical change and that I do admire."

Opening her speech at the event, Truss spoke about the decrease in high-earning businesses choosing to locate in areas other than the UK.

"The fact is that over the last 25 years, we've had relatively low economic growth, we've had relative economic stagnation and the only thing that is going to break through that is businesses and entrepreneurs being able to do things differently," she declared.

Truss also called out that government spending as a proportion of GDP now stands at a whopping 47 per cent.

The former Prime Minister went on to conclude: "We need to acknowledge that the government is too big, the taxes are too big and we are spending too much – that is very important."